NB Aqualife: Monday 14 June 2021 The Murrah

With a month having passed by since our last paddle we were keen to get back on the water and headed down to the Murrah. A low high tide of 1.3metres at 11.17am made picking a start time a bit of a guess - too early, not enough water to get down the river; too late not enough water to get back.

We arrived to find a bit of flow still coming down the river after the recent rain; without it we may well have had to do quite a lot of boat dragging.

Taking to the water at 11.27am we were pushed gently downstream.

There was just enough water to make through the first couple of bends after which we had to weave our way through sandy shallows .

Bird life was on display today with good sightings of:

Great Egrets, both types of cormorants, Sea Eagles, Grey Herons, Azure Kingfishers etc

Apologies for the terrible pics - the bird photographer forgot her camera - AGAIN!

Best guess for this bird is and immature Striated Heron

Second guess - a Black Bittern. Although it doesn't look like it in these pics the bird legs had a yellowish tinge to them.

You can see how shallow it is by the depth of L's paddle.

We decided to try the lagoon and made it up the channel only to run out of water 30 metres from the junction. Lots of heaving and poling later we turned around and headed back to the river.

You may remember from our last paddle down the river all the silage bales wrapped in green plastic that had been washed down in the flood. The farmer has done a fantastic job and has removed all the plastic from the bales left stranded on the wetlands. You can just see them in the distance over L's boat.

A flock of resting pelicans

Down near the mouth R chose our lunch site.

Having hauled out at 12.22 we admire the view

It was a bit chilly to linger for long, besides which we were conscious of the tide, now flowing strongly out and none of us fancied dragging boats through soft sand. So after only a break of 30 mins we set off again.